NSW farmers unhappy with Murray plan

NSW farmers are angry the federal government has "caved into the South Australian government" with plans to put an extra 450 gigalitres of water back into the Murray-Darling system.

The government announced on Friday the extra water would take the total to be returned to the environment under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to 3200 gigalitres.

The deadline for the new plan will be extended from 2019 to 2024.

The extra water will be sourced from farms, where government funds will make water use more efficient, and from removing constraints along the river, such as low bridges.

NSW Farmers water spokeswoman Helen Dalton said the result was "a magic number the government hopes will translate into one happy state government at the cost of the vast majority of the Murray-Darling Basin".

She said it was pleasing the government had finally realised the "enormous bang for buck" it would get from investing heavily in infrastructure and on-farm efficiency.

"But the significance of this is diminished by the suggestion we flush the equivalent of almost an entire Sydney Harbour down river systems that simply cannot hold that amount of water."

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Ms Dalton said the $1.77 billion committed on Friday would not come close to covering the costs of removing constraints such as low-lying bridges, houses, towns and decommissioning purpose-built irrigation areas.

"We all want a healthy basin," she said.

"What we don't want is a plan that is driven by politics, headlines and rhetoric, which I am bitterly disappointed to say appears to be the case."